Safeguarding and Child Protection
At St. Michael’s School ensuring the safety and welfare of every child is of paramount importance to us. We strongly believe that every child has the right to feel safe and supported and we know that in order for this to happen every member of our community has a responsibility to safeguard all our children. All staff and governors receive regular Child Protection Training and updates.
Our Safeguarding Team
Mrs Birch
Mrs Gordon
Alyson Rigby
Jeanette Riley
Sarah Reilly
Safeguarding Concerns
We have four trained members of the Safeguarding Team: Mrs Birch, Mrs Gordon, Mrs Rigby and Jeanette Riley who is our named governor for Safeguarding and Child Protection.
If you ever have any concerns about a child’s safety or well being please do talk to a member of the team in confidence. All staff understand the need for confidentiality and we also ensure all new members of staff are aware of our all our policies including our Child Protection and Whistle Blowing policy.
We systematically review and update our policies and implement new guidance from School Improvement Liverpool, Liverpool Children’s Safeguarding Partnership and the DfE. (see our Policies page).
The Safeguarding Team and Governors who sit on interview panels have attended Safer Recruitment training and recruit new staff as safely as possible.
All staff, volunteers, peripatetic music teachers and sports coaches are subject to an enhanced DBS check and references are always obtained prior to anyone commencing employment in our school.
Safeguarding Roles
| Role | Staff |
|---|---|
| Headteacher | Alyson Rigby |
| Designated Safeguarding Lead | Nicola Birch |
| Deputy Safeguarding Lead | Jade Gordon |
| Safeguarding Team Member | Sarah Reilly |
| Safeguarding Governor | Jeanette Riley |
Safeguarding Support
| Role | Staff |
|---|---|
| Learning Mentor | Lucy Duncan |
| Learning Mentor | Matthew Smith |
| Learning Mentor | Rachael Cornett |
| IT Co-ordinator | Tom Ferry |
| Family Support Worker | Erin Devereaux |
| Business Manager | Catherine Elson |
We Are Committed To:
- Always acting in the best interests of the child, ensuring their views and wishes are heard and acted upon.
- Safeguarding children and promoting their welfare. This is a shared responsibility within our school and together with all partner agencies.
- Working with partner agencies to safeguard children by adhering to Local Safeguarding Children Partnership policies and procedures and national guidance, particularly the LCSP responding to needs framework/levels of need guidance. We will contribute to effective holistic assessments of the child and family to ensure better outcomes for children.
- Working in partnership with other agencies to provide early help in keeping with the statutory guidance in Keeping Children Safe in Education (DFE) and Working Together to Safeguard Children (DFE). Schools are well placed to promote early help and undertake early help assessments with other agencies before children’s needs escalate to a point where a statutory referral to Children’s Services is required.
- Providing effective induction of all staff and volunteers, and regular on-going training to ensure all adults can recognise signs and indicators of abuse and harm. Adults working with children are always expected to act in the best interests of the child and understand that, if necessary, anyone can make a referral to Children’s Services.
- Ensuring that safer recruitment practices are adhered to and that we have well understood safeguarding policies and procedures. Our code of conduct for adults will promote safer working practices and a culture of vigilance and challenge.
- Challenging ourselves and multi-agency partners to ensure actions to improve outcomes for children are completed in a timely way.
- Quality assuring our practices and specifically completing any actions arising from the Local Authority’s 175 safeguarding audit. Governors and school leaders will quality assure all safeguarding practices, including maintaining support and oversight through effective supervision of the Designated Safeguarding Lead and safeguarding team, their decisions, actions and record keeping.
- Implementing any learning arising from local and national serious case reviews and other reviews, for example the need to listen and respond to the views and wishes of children, especially when assessing their needs and providing on-going support.
- Providing children with a curriculum which enables them to learn about risk and how to keep themselves safe and maintain happy and healthy relationships. We will provide a listening culture where children have identified adults who they can discuss their concerns with.
Safeguarding Resources
Just click a button below to View any document, you will then have the option to Download or Print the file. You can access all of our policies and reports on the website. Please contact the school if you would like any paper versions of our documents.
